FAB_RN

Not being able to be in 4 places at once.

Things have only gone from bad to worse after COVID. I would suggest you demand to speak with either the manager or house supervisor and ask them why they're clearly not staffing appropriately.

Forget about what public surveys or whatever Google says—if you want the real answer compare what the average pay, benefits, and working conditions are between the two. So are nurses really more respected?

I'm so sorry you're being put in this position, OP. It's certainly not ideal and in times past it would have been considered inappropriate, but unfortunately this is the reality we're all facing in the current derelict state of healthcare. Perhaps try to reframe precepting as more of a collaboration between you and your preceptee in that you're both learning on the job together. It may even help you further develop your skills in your specialty even faster, give you the ability to bond with new colleagues, and as others have pointed out it might end up being a positive experience. You've been a nurse for 3 years so you know how to be a nurse which is the foundation necessary to succeed in any specialty! But if it's something you really have reservations about doing it may be time to start thinking about your next gig, as defeating as that may feel. Being in bedside for 6 years myself the burnout is real.

I love your confidence that this will make any burned out nurse feel less burned out.

Millennial here. Will you accuse me of lacking empathy if I tell you that you're an idiot?

How about making average nurse-to-patient ratios reportable information? Given the choice, are you going to take your loved one to the hospital where their nurse will have 4 to 5 other patients to take care of, or 3? Nothing makes hospital policies change faster than the threat of losing revenue!

Until these issues are addressed on the federal level both nurses and patients will continue to suffer. What will it take for that to happen?

I’d really love to know if there’s a unit that DOESN’T have at least one of these issues!

The American healthcare system is so broken from top to bottom I honestly don’t know how (or if) it can ever be fixed. I’ve been a bedside nurse for going on 5 years now and I can honestly say I would never recommend doing bedside nursing to someone whose physical and emotional well-being I cared about.

Medicine cups. Unless it’s being used for a liquid med I try to leave the medicine cup on the patient’s bedside table so we’re not going through 3, 4, 5+ medicine cups during the day when the patient has medications due. Incredibly wasteful and unnecessary.